A Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia spent his final campaign stop attacking Stacey Abrams on the eve of the primary elections in the Peach State. A day before the Georgia primary, he not only disparaged her platform as a candidate, but he also brought race into the conversation.

On Monday, May 23, former Sen. David Perdue said Stacey Abrams is “demeaning her own race” and “should go back to where she came from” while stumping to become the Republican candidate to oppose Abrams this fall in the race for governor of Georgia. 

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While campaigning against his main Republican opponent, current Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Perdue stopped at a Wild Wings Cafe in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody and used his last public appeal to GOP voters to bash the only Democrat running for the governor’s position. 

He asked the crowd gathered for his rally, “Did you all see what Stacey said this weekend?”

“She said that Georgia is the worst place in the country to live,” Perdue informed them. “Hey, she ain’t from here. Let her go back where she came from if she doesn’t like it here.”

The Spelman graduate was born in Wisconsin and raised in Mississippi but spent her teens and the majority of her adult life in the Peach state. She also served in the Georgia House of Representatives for a decade.

The statements Abrams made, referenced by Perdue — who was thrashed by Kemp at the polls Tuesday — were made during a fundraising effort last weekend. At the dinner, she outlined several social ills in the state she wants to make better, including issues of mental health and wellness, maternal mortality rates and incarceration.

“I am tired of hearing about being the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live,” Abrams said, according to NBC News.  

“When you’re number 48 for mental health, when you’re number one for maternal mortality, when you have an incarceration rate that’s on the rise and wages that are on the decline, then you are not the number one place to live in the United States,” she continued before adding, “But we can get there. You see, Georgia is capable of greatness. We just need greatness to be in our governor’s office.”

Despite quoting his opponent out of context, he continued, “The only thing she wants is to be president of the United States.” 

“When she told Black farmers, ‘You don’t need to be on the farm,’ and she told Black workers in hospitality and all this, ‘You don’t need to be’ — she is demeaning her own race when it comes to that,” he stated. 

“I am really over this. She should never be considered for material for governor of any state, much less our state — where she hates to live.”

Pundit Van Jones voiced his disapproval of the Trump-backed candidate’s comments, calling them “disgusting.”

“It’s just disgusting and he’s demeaning the human race by behaving that way and talking that way,” Jones said on CNN.

He continued, “First of all, he’s lying, she never told Black farmers anything. She said that there should be other jobs besides hospitality and agriculture in Georgia and she’s correct for saying that.”

Jones contends Perdue is “making it racial,” because he is not up in the polls.

“He’s failing. He’s losing. He’s losing for a reason he jumped in based on a lie and he’s still lying,” he said.

Abrams’ actual remarks, made in 2018, were, “People shouldn’t have to go into agriculture or hospitality to make a living in Georgia.”

When told about the attacks, Abrams scoffed, “Republicans attack me, but they’ve done nothing … to articulate a plan for Georgia.”

Abrams now faces Gov. Kemp in a rematch of their 2018 race, of the most contentious gubernatorial campaigns in Georgia’s history.